Reconstruction talk:Gothic/𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽

RFD discussion: April 2019–February 2020

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Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌱𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌽𐌰𐌽

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌳𐌴𐌸𐍃

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌵𐌹𐍃𐍃

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌸𐌰𐌽

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌷𐍂𐍉𐌸𐍃

Reconstruction:Gothic/𐍃𐌺𐌰𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽

The presence of derived terms is not enough to prove that the base term existed in that language. Compare English begin and Dutch verliezen; they no more prove that *gin and *liezen exist. Likewise, cranberry does not mean *cran exists. They should only be kept if it can be shown that the derived terms were formed within Gothic and not within Proto-Germanic. —Rua (mew) 10:46, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

• The fairly regular inflectional morphology of Gothic and the relatively large prevalence of prefixes used to modify verbs (gaggan and atgaggan as just two examples) provides enough evidence that the base forms exist with reasonable certainty. Incidentally, verliezen is derived from *fraleusana which can be broken up into the prefix fra- and the base leusana. So even if *liezen does not exist, a base form in Proto-Germanic does. — This unsigned comment was added by 2604:3D08:8E80:7800:B886:B0FD:3282:A842 (talk) at 01:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC).

1. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽 - Leaning keep. The lack of cognates in other Germanic languages makes me suspicious: if it was so productive in Proto-Germanic as to produce three prefixed inherited terms in Gothic, why did it not leave any traces in other languages? Assuming a Gothic origin doesn't seem unreasonable in the case of its three derived terms.
2. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌱𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽 - Delete, though it may well have existed. Both "derived terms" existed in Proto-Germanic.
3. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌽𐌰𐌽 - Uncertain, leaning keep; attested with perfective prefix - compare the mirroring pair 𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (dauþjan)/𐌲𐌰𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gadauþjan).
4. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌳𐌴𐌸𐍃 - Uncertain, leaning keep. Köbler says waidēdja is a calque, but it could be *waidēþs + -ja, or it could be wai + *dēþs + -ja. Due to the lack of a cognate (that I know of) in any Germanic language for *waidēþs (whereas other Germanic words with *dēdiz were preserved in many different languages), I am inclined to think that word didn't really exist in Proto-Germanic and the calque was instead done using *dēþs as a productive Gothic element.
5. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌵𐌹𐍃𐍃 - Keep for sure, in some form or another. Many of the derivates are considered calques (cf. Köbler, but I am sure other sources confirm this as well: a comparison with the Greek text on which the Gothic Bible was based clearly shows it), e.g. þiuþiqiss and wailaqiss. This shows that as an element in word formation at least it was productive, similar to (and calquing) Greek -logia. Perhaps it should be noted that it may have been a suffix instead, but it should definitely be kept.
6. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌸𐌰𐌽 - Probably delete. Likely existed (no other word seems to fill the semantic gap in case of its non-existence in Gothic), but the size and nature of the corpus makes this difficult.
7. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐌷𐍂𐍉𐌸𐍃 - Probably delete. Likely existed (no other word seems to fill the semantic gap in case of its non-existence in Gothic), but the size and nature of the corpus makes this difficult.
8. Reconstruction:Gothic/𐍃𐌺𐌰𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽 - Probably delete. Nonetheless, I'm inclined to think it existed (cf. the verb form scapia in the Vandal Epigram and the agent noun skapa "creator" in the Codex Bononiensis). While the term from the Vandalic epigram may be in the "Vandalic language" according to some and thus fail to attest the Gothic word, I am of the opinion that there is no good reason to see Vandalic as anything other than a variant or dialect of Gothic, probably entirely mutually intelligible. Procopius (6th century historian) notes that the Vandals and Goths both spoke the same language (called Gothic). (Others have hypothesized that scapia may instead be an agent noun, though, corresponding to regular Gothic *skapjan + -ja.) All of this doesn't go far enough to make me vote to keep, though, especially since it's largely based on my personal view of the status of Vandalic vs. Gothic.

I somewhat agree with the IP above, but some of these seem difficult to salvage. Anyway, there's a lot of uncertainty here and I'd be interested in hearing some other opinions. @Mahagaja, perhaps? — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:42, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I just struck through two of the delete votes I marked earlier, and now vote to keep *hlathan - the verb is so basic that I strongly doubt it did not exist, especially since we currently do not trace afhlathan to PGmc (and the semantics of afhlathan and its prefix are such that I really do not believe people would not understand or use the unprefixed form). I also vote to keep *hroths. It is a more difficult case, since a word for glory wulthus is already attested, but I believe the latter refers more to majesty whereas the cognates of *hroths and its attested derivate hrotheigs refer more to worldly (especially military) triumph (which explains its complete absence in the Gothic Bible and the mere single attestation of the derivate hrotheigs). Given its presence also in Gothic given names, I think there's enough basis to suppose its existence. (Also, Germanic languages regularly have a lot of near-synonyms pertaining to glory; e.g. OE has cognates of both *hroths and wulthus; the demands of heroic alliterative poetry, which may well have existed in Gothic times, render the availability of multiple terms pertaining to glory, majesty, triumph, fame etc. more likely.)

I think that in general the comparison with Dutch verliezen does not really work, given the relative sizes of the corpora (Dutch is incredibly well-attested, Gothic is fragmentary) that the same arguments cannot be used and historical considerations and likelihood from other sources must also come into play. Regarding *skapjan, though, I find my arguments don't work as well; the corpus is such that its attestation would be expected. It seems the Bible translators at least definitely preferred the perfective gaskapjan, and while I again have no doubt the base form existed I don't feel so confident as to vote for its retention.

Also, if nobody adds or objects to anything I say, I will use my own votes as a guideline for what to delete and what to keep in a couple of weeks or so; this has sat here for 3/4 of a year now. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 10:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

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